Another Side Tours

Should you invest your capital, your time, and your entrepreneurial ambition in a tour and experience management franchise? That question sits at the center of every serious investor's research into the Another Side Tours franchise opportunity, and it deserves a rigorous, data-grounded answer rather than promotional rhetoric. Another Side Tours was founded in 2007 by Kenneth Lippman, a Southern California entrepreneur who identified a structural gap in the tourism market: the vast majority of guided tour experiences were commoditized, forgettable, and indistinguishable from one another, leaving travelers who wanted something genuinely meaningful stranded between generic bus tours and expensive private concierge services. Lippman's founding thesis was that guests deserved experiences "beyond the typical tourist experience," and he built the company around that mission from its earliest days in San Diego. The business was officially incorporated on April 26, 2010, under what would become a multi-city operational footprint. Today, Another Side Tours operates across four major U.S. tourist markets: San Diego, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and Maui, with its San Diego operations anchored across multiple downtown locations including 308 G St and 739 4th Ave. The franchise opportunity is offered through the parent entity One Tour At A Time LLC, headquartered at 11700 W. Charleston Blvd., Suite 170-1, Las Vegas, NV 89135. The company has documented over 1 million tour guests served, has accumulated thousands of 5-star reviews across Yelp, TripAdvisor, and Google, and holds corporate client relationships with organizations including the NBA, Google, Qualcomm, Fox Studios, Pepsi, Pfizer, The Home Depot, 3M Corporation, and ADP. For franchise investors evaluating experience economy brands, the question is not whether Another Side Tours has built something real. It has. The question is whether the franchise investment structure creates the right risk-adjusted opportunity for a specific type of buyer.

The global tourism and experiences market represents one of the most compelling secular growth stories available to franchise investors in 2025. The Tourism Vacation Franchising Market specifically is projected to grow from approximately $16.2 billion in 2026 to $32.38 billion by 2035, representing a compound annual growth rate of 8% over that period, according to current market research. That trajectory means the addressable market for tourism franchise concepts will essentially double in size within a decade, creating significant runway for established brands that can scale their operational models across new geographies. At the macro level, the global franchise market itself is valued at approximately $3,070 billion in 2025, with a projected CAGR of 10.41% through 2033, and North America accounts for 38.9% of total franchise market growth during the current forecast period, cementing the United States as the single most important arena for franchise expansion in the experience economy. Consumer trends are reinforcing these projections structurally. There is a measurable and accelerating demand for personalized travel experiences that depart from mass-market itineraries, a trend that directly validates the founding premise of Another Side Tours. Simultaneously, conscious travelers are driving growing demand for sustainable and responsible tourism experiences, a category where Another Side Tours has explicitly positioned itself through its emphasis on eco-friendly transportation options across its tour formats. The experience economy, a concept now thoroughly embedded in consumer spending psychology, continues to draw discretionary dollars away from physical goods and toward memorable, shareable activities, particularly in high-traffic tourist destinations like San Diego, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and Maui, where Another Side Tours has established its current operational footprint. The tourism franchise category remains relatively fragmented at the local and regional level, which means brand recognition and operational consistency carry outsized competitive weight, giving established players a meaningful structural advantage over independent operators.

The Another Side Tours franchise investment structure involves a franchise fee, startup expenses covering marketing and equipment, and ongoing royalties calculated as a percentage of revenue. Specific dollar amounts for the initial franchise fee, total investment range, royalty percentage, and advertising fund contribution are not disclosed in publicly available materials, with the company stating that costs vary by location and size and that a detailed financial breakdown is provided upon application. For investors conducting initial due diligence, relevant industry benchmarks provide useful framing. Across the broader franchise industry in 2025, initial franchise fees typically range between $20,000 and $50,000, with ongoing royalty fees generally falling between 4% and 8% of gross sales for most franchise categories. Professional services and experience-based franchises frequently carry higher royalty structures, often between 8% and 12% of gross sales, reflecting the operational complexity and brand value embedded in those models. Advertising fund contributions across the franchise industry commonly range from 1% to 4% of net sales. The Another Side Tours franchise process is structured to take between 60 and 90 days from initial qualification to agreement execution, a timeline that is consistent with mid-complexity franchise systems across the service and experience categories. The franchise is offered through One Tour At A Time LLC, a Nevada-registered entity, which is the relevant legal counterpart for any franchise agreement review. Prospective franchisees should engage franchise-specific legal counsel to evaluate the Franchise Disclosure Document, assess the territory agreement terms, and benchmark the total cost of ownership against comparable experience economy franchise opportunities. No information regarding SBA eligibility, veteran incentive programs, or specific financing partnerships has been disclosed publicly by the franchisor, making direct inquiry during the discovery process an important step for investors who intend to use third-party capital to fund the initial investment.

Daily operations for an Another Side Tours franchisee center on delivering guided tour experiences across the franchisee's designated exclusive territory, managing a tour guide staff, coordinating with corporate and private event clients, and executing local marketing strategy within the framework provided by the franchisor. The company's current tour portfolio includes Segway tours, private tours, city tours, Coronado tours, La Jolla tours, scavenger hunts, corporate event management, and destination management services, offering franchisees a multi-format revenue model rather than dependence on a single tour type. Staffing is inherently central to a tour operations business, as the quality of the guest experience is directly mediated by the tour guide's knowledge, personality, and execution, making hiring and training of frontline staff a critical operational competency for franchisees. Another Side Tours states clearly that prior tourism industry experience is not required, with the franchisor committing to teach franchisees everything they need to know through its comprehensive training program, which encompasses initial training, an operations review at Discovery Day at the company's headquarters, hands-on exposure to live tour operations, and ongoing support through the franchisor's marketing and operational systems. The five-step franchisee onboarding process moves through Initial Qualification, Discovery and Due Diligence, a Discovery Day meeting with key support team members, a Business Planning phase with franchisor guidance on location requirements and startup timeline, and a final Launch phase covering franchise agreement execution, training completion, business setup, and marketing launch execution. Franchisees receive access to the company's marketing materials and strategies, an exclusive operating territory, and support infrastructure developed over more than 17 years of experience management operations. The General Manager of Another Side Tours, Melissa Graham, is identified as part of the leadership team providing operational oversight, alongside CEO and founder Kenneth Lippman, suggesting that franchisees have access to experienced operational leaders rather than a purely administrative support structure. The owner-operator model appears to be the primary operational framework, consistent with the company's emphasis on individual market development and local brand stewardship.

Item 19 financial performance data is not disclosed in the current Franchise Disclosure Document for Another Side Tours. This is a critically important fact for any investor conducting serious due diligence, and it must be weighed carefully within the broader evaluation framework. Franchisors operating in the United States are not legally required to provide financial performance representations in their FDD, but the absence of Item 19 disclosure does mean that prospective franchisees cannot rely on independently verified, franchisor-disclosed average revenue, median revenue, or quartile performance data when modeling their investment returns. The company's FAQ language on its franchise website does indicate that projected income based on average performance may be shared directly with applicants during the discovery process, which suggests that internal financial data exists but has not been published in the standard FDD disclosure format. For benchmarking purposes, investors can consider the broader context of the tourism experience economy. The four markets in which Another Side Tours currently operates, San Diego, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and Maui, collectively represent some of the highest annual tourist volume destinations in the United States, with Las Vegas alone drawing approximately 40 million visitors per year and San Diego hosting over 32 million visitors annually in recent pre-pandemic reporting periods. The company's corporate client roster, which includes Fortune 500 names such as Google, Pfizer, 3M, and The Home Depot, signals a meaningful B2B revenue stream alongside consumer tour sales, a dual-channel structure that can improve revenue stability for franchisees operating in markets with strong corporate activity. Another Side Tours also describes itself as consistently highly awarded in the Western United States, reinforcing the brand's reputation as a quality operator in a competitive regional market. Investors evaluating the Another Side Tours franchise investment without Item 19 data should weigh the strength of these qualitative and contextual signals against the absence of quantitative performance disclosure, and should prioritize direct conversation with current franchisees, a step the franchisor explicitly facilitates during the due diligence phase, as the primary path to earnings validation.

Another Side Tours has demonstrated steady geographic expansion since its 2007 founding, building operational presence in San Diego, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and Maui over a 17-year period, establishing a Western United States concentration strategy that targets the highest-density leisure and business travel markets in the country. The company's milestone of surpassing 1 million tour guests served, combined with thousands of 5-star reviews across major consumer review platforms, represents a brand equity asset that a franchise investor in a new territory can leverage immediately rather than building from scratch. The corporate client infrastructure, including relationships with the NBA, Google, Kellogg's, Cox Communications, SportsMark, and ADP, demonstrates that Another Side Tours has successfully penetrated the higher-margin corporate event and destination management segment, which is structurally more recession-resilient than purely discretionary consumer tourism because corporate event budgets are often pre-committed through annual planning cycles. The company's positioning as a provider of luxury tours and resort-style experiences, combined with its eco-friendly transportation offerings, places it at the intersection of two of the strongest secular trends in consumer travel: the premiumization of experiences and the sustainability imperative. The broader franchise market's projected CAGR of 10% through 2030, combined with the Tourism Vacation Franchising Market's 8% CAGR through 2035, provides a macro tailwind that supports unit-level growth for well-positioned brands in this category. Another Side Tours' "Another Side of Los Angeles Tours" operation is described as being nestled adjacent to the heart of Beverly Hills, underscoring the brand's intentional positioning in premium, high-visibility tourist corridors rather than peripheral market areas. No specific information regarding recent acquisitions, leadership transitions, or major technology platform investments has been disclosed publicly, making the Discovery Day conversation with the leadership team an important venue for understanding the brand's near-term strategic roadmap.

The ideal Another Side Tours franchise candidate is an entrepreneurially minded individual who combines a genuine passion for hospitality and guest experience delivery with the operational discipline required to manage staff, coordinate logistics, and execute marketing campaigns in a competitive local tourism market. The franchisor explicitly states that prior tourism industry experience is not a prerequisite, broadening the eligible candidate pool to include professionals from adjacent service industries such as event management, hospitality, corporate training, or customer experience leadership. Given the company's strong corporate client portfolio, candidates with B2B sales experience or existing relationships in the corporate event planning, HR, or employee engagement space may find that background particularly valuable in driving the higher-margin corporate tour and destination management revenue stream. The franchise process takes 60 to 90 days from initial inquiry to agreement execution, which is a relatively efficient timeline for investors who have completed their personal financial preparation and legal review in advance. The franchise offers exclusive territory rights, meaning franchisees operate without competition from other Another Side Tours units within their designated geography, a structural protection that is particularly valuable in markets where the brand has not yet established operational presence. Territory options and geographic availability are reviewed during the Discovery and Due Diligence phase of the onboarding process, with specific territory development plans discussed during the Discovery Day meeting at company headquarters. Multi-unit development expectations and absentee ownership considerations are topics that prospective franchisees should address directly with the franchisor during the business planning phase, as the publicly available materials do not specify the brand's position on owner-operator versus semi-absentee operational models.

Another Side Tours presents a franchise opportunity that warrants structured, disciplined due diligence from investors who are drawn to the experience economy and seeking a brand with documented consumer traction, an established corporate client base, and geographic concentration in some of the most visited tourist markets in the United States. The combination of 17 years of operational history since the 2007 founding, the 1 million guest milestone, consistent recognition as a highly awarded tour company in the Western United States, and corporate relationships with organizations like Google, the NBA, and Pfizer creates a brand foundation that is meaningfully differentiated from unproven startup concepts in the tourism franchise space. At the same time, the absence of Item 19 financial performance disclosure in the current FDD means that prospective investors must conduct especially rigorous independent earnings validation, leveraging the franchisor-facilitated access to current franchisees as a primary data source. The Tourism Vacation Franchising Market's trajectory from $16.2 billion in 2026 to $32.38 billion by 2035 at an 8% CAGR provides a compelling macro backdrop, and the North American franchise market's 38.9% share of global franchise growth reinforces the structural opportunity available to well-positioned brands in this geography. PeerSense provides exclusive due diligence data including SBA lending history, FPI score, location maps with Google ratings, FDD financial data, and side-by-side comparison tools that allow investors to evaluate Another Side Tours against the full competitive landscape of experience economy franchise opportunities with the same analytical rigor applied to any major capital allocation decision. Explore the complete Another Side Tours franchise profile on PeerSense to access the full suite of independent franchise intelligence data.